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Texas Rangers first baseman Mike Napoli will be with Frisco on Thursday, as he starts a rehab assignment. Napoli has been on the 10 day disabled list with a sore back.
It remains to be seen how many games Napoli spends on this rehab assignment, though one would assume the Rangers will want him to spend 2-3 games shaking off the rust.
The Rangers are going to have to make some roster decisions in the next few days, with Napoli presumably being activated by the end of the weekend, and Tyson Ross and Carlos Gomez likely being activated on Friday. With Gomez and Napoli both returning to action, the Rangers will have to send one, and perhaps two, from the Jared Hoying/Ryan Rua/Delino DeShields trio back to AAA, along with Jurickson Profar.
Once Napoli returns, Joey Gallo would seem likely to get the bulk of the playing time in left field, with Napoli returning to first base. If Napoli doesn’t start hitting soon, however — he has a 669 OPS this season — we could see Gallo get more time at first.